>Colleagues might be interested to know that the PRO catalogue containing 8.2 million piece descriptions is now available on the internet. Both series and piece level descriptions are available and these can be browsed or searched using key word searches. This is very much a test site. A much fuller and more sophisticated version will be available next year or early 2001. There are some deliberate restrictions on its use - if you do a keyword search you will be first taken to all relevant series and then you will have to launch a second search of piece level data. Keyword searches will only return 250 hits. Both these restrictions are designed to protect their servers from over-use and will be eased once they are more confident about demand. There are also two bugs they know about. First, it runs like a dog in ie3 (ie4 and Netscape appear to be fine). Second, the 'and' feature of the keyword search does not work. They are trying to fix these problems. The site is at www.pro.gov.uk They welcome comments. You can use the form on the site. This information has been provided by david.thomas@pro.gov.uk If you actually plan to travel to PRO to research you will spend a lot of time figuring out what they have and how to access it - same as PRONI (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland). Studying these resources online and/or gleaning information prior to a trip there will facilitate your valuable research time. Before a trip to PRO do read "Genealogical Research in England's Public Record Office: A Guide for North Americans", by Judith Prowse Reid, Genealogical Publishing Co, ISBN 0 8063 1504-0 .